When the service began in this small weatherboard church in a remote part of West Virginia, the atmosphere was one of pious restraint. Now, it’s unbridled euphoria as each member of the church yields to their emotions in an attempt to reach spiritual transcendence. (Styllis, The Telegraph)
Read MoreLightcap pointed to the “natural progression” of ChatGPT as it becomes more useful and familiar to a broader group of people. “People hear about it through word of mouth. They see the utility of it. They see their friends using it.” (Rooney, CNBC)
Read MoreThe pilgrimage is believed to have originated in the 16th century — before the temple was built on the huge rock that gave the pilgrimage its name Peddagattu, or “large rock” in the local Telugu language. Devotees, who arrived from faraway places, cooked their sacrificed animals on open fires outside their tents on the grounds surrounding the temple. (Kumar & Bhatia, AP News)
Read MoreNewly released figures for 2024 show it's now 9.3%. The rise is largely driven by younger adults increasingly identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, with the higher numbers of people calling themselves bisexual. (Weise, USA Today)
Read MoreA cardinal suggests some circumstances under which Pope Francis, who has spent a week in hospital, might choose to retire. But he stresses the pontiff has a tendency to fight and wants to see out the Jubilee Year. (Sky News)
Read MoreLore is valuable online currency these days. A finalist for Oxford Dictionary’s 2024 word of the year (it lost to “brain rot”), this Old English word for knowledge has become slang for dramatic, and often traumatic, details that define a person’s existence. Driven by the impulse to self-mythologize and spin yarns, young people are enshrining even the most minor incidents as essential public knowledge. (Wong, The Wall Street Journal)
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